More soccer, and Laying Pipe

Our good friends Aaron and DaraDee were at the soccer field on Saturday morning watching their son play on the team that played Libby's team. They were kind enough to take these pictures of Libby, and the referee - me.
I remember with fondness that little moment that Libby and I had together at halftime. Thanks for capturing it Aaron!

For Family Night, we had a work project to do, so Monday right after school we loaded everybody up in the truck and drove 1/2 hour over to Bruce's parents' farm. They own 20 acres and most of it is in grass hay. Bruce is in charge of raising this hay, and in the Wild Wild West, that means irrigating. We irrigate with sprinkler pipe, or hand lines, which have to be put out by hand. We started at 4:30 and stopped when it was too dark to see. Four and half hours of steady work.

Joseph had to go to a track meet, so he got out of it! But he worked plenty hard - he got a PR (Personal Record) in the 3200 meter by 30 seconds, and a PR in the 1600 meter by 2 seconds. Wow, Joseph - good job!!

Since Joseph was gone, Peter and Libby got promoted! Peter got moved up onto one of the pipe-laying teams, and Libby got promoted to driving the 4-wheeler. You should have seen their faces - they were grinning from ear to ear, they were so proud to be contributing. And they really were. It wasn't just a token job that they did - we really needed them, and they filled an important role.

While Bruce, Josh, Jesse and I loaded the pipe trailer,Mary, Peter and Libby would play on the swing set, or raid Grandma's chest freezer for all kinds of good eatins'.

The teams this time were Dad and Jesse,
Josh and Peter, and Mary and I. Peter could barely lift the pipe over the top of the trailer, but he managed to do it. Way to go Peter!
He can also play Superman.
Who's hands are these?If I hadn't taken the picture, I would say Bruce, but no - they are Josh's. These gloves come from the box at the front of the shed that is filled with work gloves. Every time we come out to work we dig through the box to find some gloves. These have seen a few pipes!
We got most of the pipe put down last night. We still have one field left to do, up by the shed. I'm proud of our kids. And we made it through with the least raised voices and tense moments on record! (Just keepin' it real.)

Pullin' Pipe

(Suggested music - International Harvester)

Bruce's parents have a grass hay farm about half an hour away from here, and since it was Labor Day, Bruce decided we needed to labor on the farm. Isn't there something twisted with that logic? No, but really, this is the only time we had to do it without having to miss all sorts of stuff.

Bruce put Libby to work picking apples, since she is too little still to help with the pipe.

The rest of us got to bring in the irrigation pipe - which we call "pullin' pipe" for short.

Peter drives Grandpa's four-wheeler with the pipe trailer behind it. He'll drive a little, then stop and wait while we bring the pipe and load it on the trailer.

Today we had three teams: Dad and Jesse, Mary and I, and Josh and Joseph.

We can pick up three rows of pipe at a time this way because Dad and Jesse do one side, Josh and Joseph the other, and Mary and I do the one right down the middle.

Jesse was a Shera today doing the pipe. Man, she is one tough chick. It's challenging to carry two pipes at the same time, but putting them on the trailer two at a time is even harder. She did it all morning with Bruce without any complaint whatsoever. She just informed me that it is not challenging, and that she and Dad did three at a time. Sheesh!

Mary has grown enough this year that she is finally tall enough to lift the pipe over the guard rails on the trailer and get the pipe on. That means she is a full time worker, and she does a great job.

Libby in pink in the hay. :)

It's a great experience to work together as a family and get this job done. I would like to say that it was all kindness and cheerfulness and hard work, but it was not. It gets a little tense sometimes, but in the end, in the overall picture, it's good.

We take a lot of breaks. After every load, we go in to Grandma and Grandpa's shed (it's more like a warehouse) and raid Grandma's freezer. She leaves all kinds of frozen food there that we can microwave and munch on. I was musing today about how she provides food for us, even when she is in another state. They don't actually live on the farm - they own 20 acres, and plan to build a house on it someday, but for now, they just live in their trailer when they come.

The farm is beautiful, and working out in the open on the farm is a different feeling than any other kind of work that I've done. I frankly quite enjoy it, and I love living in Idaho and having the chance to have these kinds of experiences with our family!